China says no room for compromise with Japan on history, territory

(Reuters) -
China said on Saturday that there was no room for compromise with Japan
on questions of history and disputed territory, "each inch" of which it
would defend from its Asian neighbor.

China's ties with Japan have
long been poisoned by what China sees as Japan's failure to atone for
its occupation of parts of China before and during World War Two.

Beijing's
anger over the past is never far from the surface, and relations have
deteriorated sharply over the past 18 months because of a dispute over a
chain of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

"On
the two issues of principle, history and territory, there is no room
for compromise," Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters on the
sidelines of China's annual parliament....